Posted
by
timothy
on Monday July 23, 2012 @04:41AM
from the get-to-the-next-payphone dept.

beaverdownunder writes "Many Aussies across New South Wales and South Australia had a bit of a shock this morning when they received an SMS threatening them with assassination. Although somewhat varied, the messages have typically read, 'Someone paid me to kill you. If you want me to spare you, I'll give you two days to pay $5000. If you inform the police or anybody, you will die, I am monitoring you', and signed with the e-mail address killerking247@yahoo.com. Police and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have warned that the messages are almost certainly fake, and that no dialogue should be entered into with scammers." I hope "almost certainly" is droll understatement.

"Hello! I understand why you would want to kill a Nigerian prince, however, my country is in turmoil and my money is tied from my hands. Please allow me to send you a check for $30,000 which you can cash and please Western Union all but your $5000 back to me at this address:..."

Commisioner also stated that "You're almost certainly unlikely to be found dead in the bush 7 days after the message. Reason of death won't probably be 20-25 stab wounds in all body parts. There's practically no possibility your eyes will be burned out with hot iron. We find it very improbable that you will be dismembered with a piano wire and disemboweled. There is no reason for panic. Probably."

In England at least, judges have determined that SMS messages and Twitter have exactly the same status as any other written publication. Australian law is, I believe, based on English law. So: this would be a blackmail attempt. Five years' jail for every message seems about right. They need to find him and then he can spend the rest of his life locked in his parents' basement. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what will happen if they don't catch him.

Back during the colonial days and original formation of the states, this was true. But once the states were formed, they were given limited independence to create their own laws (which had to be approved by the Crown at the time, such as with South Australia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Australia_Act_1834 [wikipedia.org] )

Full Independence was granted years later, and we now make our own laws as we see fit. Some of them logical, some of them even more fucked up than ever.

I'd love to argue with you and point out instances where you're mistaken, but I'm buggered if I can.

Between our Patriot-Act-inspired anti-terrorism laws that came in for our good buddy Dubbya; our support for ACTA; our one-sided Free Trade Agreement which screws ourselves; and now the US Marines base in the Northern Territory (because Woomera wasn't enough).

Well, we've effectively ceded control over ourselves to the US.

I'm all for supporting our allies, and the US provides us with great protection, but we're legislating ourselves into being conquered.

I think what he meant was that English law and Australian law share a lot of similarities because Aus law is based on the English law; indeed a lot of the Acts are the same, because they predate the split. Hence a lot of Australian courts will take english court decisions into mind, as "non-binding precedence"; indeed, even US courts have been known to do this from time to time.Hence the ruling in an English court that a twitter update can be regarded i the same way as any other written document, could be used in an Aus. court as a "well here's what they did" precedence. Obviously, assuming Aus. has no such law or similar precedent in their own legal history.

Ahh, got you. I thought he was meaning that all of our laws were merely a copy of the UK ones.

If laws haven't been enacted here, we do look at precedents set in other states, then other countries. The UK and the US being some of the more obvious examples. In this case, however, the Australian Telecommunications Act already covers these things and is quite unlike the UK version.

But ultimately, the political parties usually have their own agenda. If we looked at more forward-thinking countries and our or

You know what I am sick of people dissing Adelaide. I have traveled widely and there is nowhere else I would rather live. If you think its so backwards why not fuck off and leave it to the many people who love it here!

It certainly is. On the other hand, assume you can send SMSes in a way which is not traceable and comparatively cheap. Assume you want the entire police force of some place - say, New South Wales - to be too busy and way less effective. Assume you want to commit some other crime which would greatly benefit from the police force in that place being too busy chasing phantoms.

I'd grab a beer, start up the BBQ, prepare some T-Bones with some olive oil and some spices, and lay out in the sun.

Did I win?

Possibly the "balls of steel" award for doing that in the middle of winter. As mild as it might be at the moment, the evenings can get frosty.;)

The thing is, even if the thread is empty and just meant to help another crime (extortion or worse), if only one person gets murdered, even in a totally unrelated act, and the police didn't say what they said, they'd face

It certainly is. On the other hand, assume you can send SMSes in a way which is not traceable and comparatively cheap. Assume you want the entire police force of some place - say, New South Wales - to be too busy and way less effective. Assume you want to commit some other crime which would greatly benefit from the police force in that place being too busy chasing phantoms.

Im pretty sure they dont assign "the entire police force" to a single issue, particularly one like this. Seems far more likely "get warrant from courts for SMS records" would just get tacked onto the end of one officer's to-do list.

It certainly is. On the other hand, assume you can send SMSes in a way which is not traceable and comparatively cheap. Assume you want the entire police force of some place - say, New South Wales - to be too busy and way less effective. Assume you want to commit some other crime which would greatly benefit from the police force in that place being too busy chasing phantoms.

Something that works. The main police officer busied by this is the PR guy. Sure they'll track the SMS source down and do something about it. Total manpower expended? Ridiculous.

Plant a real bomb with a non-working but dangerously looking detonator near the train station so that it's discovered 20 minutes before you rob your bank (say, by putting it near the trash bins and knowing when the waste disposal truck comes). You'll have the C&C center busy and quite a bunch of policemen to control the area.

But I did get a spam once from someone claiming that he had evidence that would land me in prison, and threatening to report me to the FBI unless I immediately wrote back for instructions on how to pay him.

I did reply with a rather graphic description of the services his parents perform for sailors, and never heard from him again.

But I did get a spam once from someone claiming that he had evidence that would land me in prison, and threatening to report me to the FBI unless I immediately wrote back for instructions on how to pay him.

This type of scam is quite common. Why is this news? The anti scam sites are full of stories of these scammers being baited to annoy then. Plug the text phrase into Google and you should find it reported verbatum on anti scam sites and scam baiting sites.

Who's going to trust a "killer" who was hired to kill you that is willing to be bought off? Doesn't sound like a very reliable sort to me. So you pay him off, he keeeellls you anyway, and you're out $5000. Or something.

Many years ago I received an email claiming to be from Al-Qaeda with an order to kill me. If they are actually trying to kill me, it must from boredom because I haven't seen any other serious effects from it. They also said they would spare my life if I sent them a large sum of cash.

Oddly enough when I replied to them from a throwaway email address asking them for more information they never got back to me.

I think that's called the switch to US Cellular scam lol. They're the only company to do unlimited incoming anything from anywhere at any time. I hopped on that like Oprah on cheese and was wondering what exactly was mentally wrong with people over at the Verizon and AT&T stores. Anyone anywhere being able to cost you any amount of money with no way to stop it seems like a LITTLE bit of a vulnerability in the logic of their plans.

I received that exact threat about a month ago. It was obviously horse sh*t so I didn't worry about it. I got it by email (at my work account) about three days after LinkedIn got its database hacked, so I assume they got my email address from LinkedIn.

Either these guys are a bunch of copycatters, or the same thing is happening. If I recall LinkedIn (like everyone else) wanted my cellphone number so they can contact me "in case of emergency." I f*cking hate that - I don't want everyone to have my cellpho

Many businesses that sell police and military equipment balk at the idea of selling body armor to average janes and joes. Recent events have probably heightened their vigilance and paranoia.

One company told me that they would make exceptions in the case of special circumstances, and specifically mentioned "death threats". If you have an SMS death threat, get your body armor now while it's cheap and available to you.